


faith, trust, and pixie dust

by doubtthestars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Crack, Gen, Goats, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 09:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: The real reason Jonas missed the mexico game was a little more complicated than the flu.





	faith, trust, and pixie dust

**Author's Note:**

> this is rough and terrible and it's jossed to hell and back. horst isnt the wnt coach but he was the interim one. leo bittencourt is no longer with koeln. etc etc, this idea came around from a bet so all credit to discorgi. sorry it's such a mess.

When Marcus appears at his side as soon as he enters the lobby, his ‘someone will deeply regret making his life more difficult’ sense tingles, which isn’t any different from the usual when it came to the weeks of a tournament with Germany’s senior squad. He sighed, the wicked never rest and Jogi’s squad was full of the wicked.

“What happened?” Marcus looked apologetic as if he had any control over what their players would do outside of the pitch. He would learn. 

“Hector is a goat.” 

Jogi grimaces and rubs at his right temple with the hand not holding his coffee. He had to make some calls and maybe bribe Horst to come to Russia. He almost missed Brazil where the wild magic hadn’t interfered to the point of disaster every other day. Russia’s most powerful mage was Rasputin for a reason. The country was steeped in the less savory side of magic, and that was exactly what they didn’t need on top of The Curse hovering over them.

“Does anybody else know about this? Is he contained?” Marcus tilts his head, wincing, and probably filled with more bad news.

“We managed to book a shielded null-effect room for him but he transformed in front of half the team when they were holding a table tennis tournament so they volunteered to watch him, in the room together. I left Schneider to watch over them.”

Jogi scratched his nose. 

“And who exactly is watching over the rest of the team that isn’t there?” Herding a national team was like taking care of extremely picky and rambunctious toddlers. One could never lose sight of the group especially in the case of highly magical ones. He missed Philipp for the millionth time. Retirement had looked like the better option for the past two years, yet he was clearly, intrinsically, some sort of masochist, to renew his contract until someone eligible enough cropped up to handle the team. 

“Um, I’ll go check on them right away. The shielded bloc is on the 14th floor.” 

Jogi waved him off, knowing a room check would yield results he’d be happy to keep his mind and eyes off. The younger crop of players had been sharing a closet it seemed for the lack of their own training clothes they wore. Andi had managed to get some vague excuse out of Marc, something about luck charms and magic compatibility. Horst owed him is what he thought as he glared down at the screen of his phone. So he held no guilt in trying to persuade Hrubesch into taking a plane immediately for the sake of the team.

“Horst,” Jogi jabbed the elevator button with force enough to bruise his pointer finger. 

“Jogi, you know I’d rather watch the national team on television than in person. Besides, I’ve already told you I can’t do anything about the Curse on the trophy. It’s a persistent devil of a thing. I maintain it was Italy who-” 

Jogi hastily interrupted.

“It’s not that. One of my players managed to turn himself into a goat a day before our debut. Is there anything you and your formidable knowledge could recommend on ways to change him back. He was part of the plans against Mexico, now I’ve got to find a suitable excuse and a suitable replacement.” 

“You have to give me more details than that. I can’t assess the cause if you don’t give me some background. Unless it was Suele, I’m almost positive the kid has shifter blood in him.” Horst chuckles to himself like it was a grand joke. Jogi stares at the climbing numbers of the lift in detached agony.

“It’s not Niklas. It’s Jonas Hector. And even better, I can get you here, first class, without any hassle, so you can assess in person. Horst, you’ve seen the results of the last three days. Russia is a minefield of tricks and strangeness. Their team scored five goals in the opening match.” Jogi scoffed. FIFA could only willingly do so much. 

“It’s the 21rst century, Joachim, we have VAR at the World Cup and you can use your phone to video call your report. I’m not stepping foot on that cursed soil. I’m old. I can’t be taking those types of risks at my age.” Jogi rolls his eyes. Horst was one of the most magically talented coaches in Germany. It would take more than a stay in Russia to take him down or deplete his reserve.

He had gotten to his floor finally.

“You know as well as I do cameras don’t do well with magical interference.” He’d be embarrassed at the noise his players were making if he wasn’t more relieved that they hadn’t somehow killed each other or Surged out in the null-effect area. 

“Well, Hector plays for Koeln doesn’t he? Call them up and see if it’s happened before. If it’s Russian interference on the World Champions, you can at least file a complaint and I could send one of the girls on your first class flight.” Jogi knocked on the door, forgetting to ask Marcus for the key was very low on his priorities list.

“One of your girls?” Jogi asks.

Horst sighs, “If you think you’ve got a hard job with the men. I’ll tell you I’ve never seen or fielded a team with the aptitude the women have. The federation is going to have a tough time finding a coach for them.”

“So you haven’t taken the job officially?” He had thought it was a done deal. It would be an interesting move for Horst, who was always looking for a new challenge. The women’s team seemed like a good bet for his next best. 

He knocked harder and heard hurried whispers that weren’t as quiet as they liked to think. The rooms had odd acoustics to minimize any risk of injury or liability. 

“I’m thinking about it, holding out for more perks. Call me when you find out the situation. I think Kemme or Popp have some sort of animal handling license. I’ll see if I can persuade them to cut their vacations short.” Horst hangs up and Jogi finally gains entrance into the room where a good deal of his players were camped out. 

Draxler was baby-talking at Jonas the goat. Boateng, who had opened the door, looked odd without his magical tattoos in place, and Joshua was sleeping in the corner with Matthias and Niklas as his personal sentries. Toni had a blue sheen to his skin that was unsettling to look at for too long, but otherwise looked as bored as always. Overall it was better than Jogi had expected, even with Jonas sporting a hastily tied sweatshirt around his neck. 

“Who can tell me what happened to Jonas?”

-

Spontaneous transformation was not completely unheard of but rare enough to be the last option on the list. Jogi heeded Horst’s suggestion while watching the captain of his team try to convince Jonas to jump on his back while he stretched with the encouragement of the rest of the team.

“Stefan, has Jonas ever turned into a goat before?” Jogi doesn’t mince words. There were more players trying to coax Jonas by trying to do yoga poses unsuccessfully on the gym mats.

“Uh, hello Jogi, well, yes he has.” 

_Jonas was a goat._

_The oldest trainer at the club, took a look at the former human still surrounded by his kit, scratched at his jaw and shrugged. "You should probably get him some clothes." The panic only got worse from there._

_It happened, once or twice in the 70s, no rhyme or reason to it. If Koeln wanted someone to be a goat, they would be a goat._

_"Can he still play as a goat?" The team was huddled in a circle around Jonas the goat, half frightened that some baser urge would make him run off and half to protect his modesty as Timo and Matthias went to find goat-sized clothes. Everyone looked at Hoeger like he was mad for suggesting it._

_"Are you--I think, the more important question is when will he turn back?" Leonardo was understandably worried and Jonas the goat took a step towards him before butting the ground in a wobbly nod._

_"It should only last a couple of days, according to the records we have," Stefan reassured the team, still looking shifty and paranoid about being the next player to turn into the mascot. A gasp from Ozcan made them all jump._

_"Was Hennes ever a person??" Jonas the goat made a noise that probably was meant to be a laugh or a sigh or a "stop salih's wild imagination" plea but no one spoke goat._

_"Why is he so small?" someone else piped up before anyone entertained Salih's question._

_"I think he's a baby goat." Milos answered._

_"Is there a difference in goat years? He's 27 in human years so does that mean he's still a kid in goat?"_

_"No, stupid, goats don't live that long. Hennes is the eighth Hennes for a reason."_

_Squabbling ensued before Jonas the goat made another noise and got everyone's attention._

_"Oh no, he's so cute."_

__

“And you didn’t think to tell me this, why?” Jogi’s job was hard enough as it was. Stefan sighed.

“It was out of the blue and I had forgotten it by the time the season ended. In all honesty, I thought Jonas would tell you himself after he got a call from Podolski that cleared things up for him. Our grimoires weren’t very well-maintained to tell you the truth.” 

Jogi furrowed his brows in concern that Stefan hadn’t even rated a player turning into a goat as a priority. He knew Koeln stuck to the old ways more than some teams but magic like that would still be odd on any given day.

“Okay, then how did he turn back?” Stefan stayed silent for a moment.

“I don’t know. One day, I had half my team debating how to knit a proper sweater and the next Jonas was back in human form. It only took three or four days. Hardly anyone complained about goat-sitting duty. He does tend to bite things to get your attention.” Stefan informed him brightly. Jogi felt his temples throb.

“Right, of course, and you said Bittencourt was his main caretaker during that time, correct?” 

“Mostly, there was an incident over the issue but Leon--” Jogi cut Stefan off before the tale could continue to take up more time. He feared the worst when he saw Mats’ phone out as Jonas butted his head against the ball someone had procured. 

“I need to go Stefan, thank you for the information. Hector will arrive back to your pre-season training in one piece.”

Manuel came up to him without prompting with a gleam in his eye.

“Have you ever heard of goat yoga? It could be great for the team, all we would need is more goats.” 

Jogi stared at him in consternation.

“No.”

“We just need to persuade a farmhand to bring in some goats.” Manuel’s magic bounced off his shields with a quick spark. He was more than familiar in using it to sway someone to his idiot ideas. He thanked all his lucky stars Neuer couldn’t influence more than one person at a time. Jogi had heard the after effects were similar to a hangover. It explained everything about Manuel Neuer and his outook on magic. 

“No.”

Manuel pouts.

-

In the end, Jogi didn’t need to call Lukas because Marco wasn’t spellbound over Jonas’ goat antics like the rest of the team and made some strides to balance the karmic scales of Jogi's patience. He had a short, and from the way Marco went red every time he brought up Bittencourt, embarrassing conversation to find a solution to Jonas being stuck as a goat. 

“I volunteer.” Joshua spoke up at dinner. The varied reactions did nothing to quell Jogi’s exasperation.

“As tribute?” Mats teasingly questioned, even though the team had already been informed by Marco of the bizarre cure. 

“I roomed with him before. It’s not a big deal. I owe him one.” Joshua shrugged. Draxler chewed on his food intently and Leon had a slightly sour look on his face in response but Jogi stepped in before he had to dedicate even more brain power to ignoring whatever relationships had cropped up in the pressure cooker of various tournaments over the immensly long years. 

“Do what you have to do. As soon as possible.” but Joshua nodded and leaned back to finish his dinner, ears turning the color of lobsters. Jogi really didn’t want to know as long as it worked and he got his player back.

It took several tries and many whispered song suggestions that Jogi absolutely did his best to tune out before Jonas emerged as a human from Joshua’s room. 

“Was it Helene Fischer? I knew it would work.” Mats said between bites of his breakfast, confident in his choice. Jerome snorted next to him. 

“No, but remind me not to invite you to karaoke.” Jonas replies serenely, seemingly unphased by the days spent as a goat.

“I can totally sing better than Jo.” Mats says offended by the insinuation and the reminder that he had kidnapped or goatnapped Jonas to try to remedy the situation himself via five seconds of snuggling on the couch before Jonas escaped his grasp. Sami rolls his eyes at the other table. 

“Where is Jo, shouldn’t he come down to breakfast?” Mesut asks.

Jonas shifts on his feet, as if remembering his goat prancing. 

“I’m sure he’ll be down eventually. He was, ah, catching up with Leon when I left.” a chorus of ‘ooohs’ rose up from the peanut gallery to Marcus’ look of horror across from him. Jogi kept eating, sparing a welcome back to Jonas. 

It was business as usual.

**Author's Note:**

> Marco: so you held him like a teddy bear and sang a lullaby?  
> Leo: i dont need to explain myself twice.  
> Marco: what did you sing??  
> Leo: i'm not giving you that ammunition.


End file.
